Paramount’s never been concerned with cinematic continuity among their series of films based on Tom Clancy’s novels; while all of them have featured Clancy’s CIA analyst Jack Ryan as the main character, that character has been portrayed by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and now, in the latest reboot of Clancy’s series, Chris Pine. Obviously “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” which is not based on any one of the late Clancy’s novels but is an original story featuring the character, was meant to launch a franchise. It doesn’t seem that it will. But the latest “Jack Ryan” is pretty good, a sort of throwback to a simpler action-thriller without men in Spandex or capes. It does go to the CIA-thriller well one too many times ultimately, but Pine’s an appealing presence and you can hardly say the film doesn’t feel quite a bit like a lost Clancy story. “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” introduces the young Ryan as a student of economics who enlists in the Marines after 9/11, is injured in Afghanistan and is asked to put his education and sharp mind to work as a CIA analyst by an older mentor (Kevin Costner). Some years later, Ryan is unexpectedly called into action when he notices some discrepancies in a Russian company that seem to indicate a plot to crash the U.S. economy. Director Kenneth Branagh (who also co-stars as the villain) directs action clearly and capably, culminating in a standard but no less tense climax. Clearly “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” doesn’t reinvent the wheel; it’s even the second reboot of this character. But it’s better than you think. $30.99 DVD, $37.99 Blu-ray.

“NON-STOP”

Ridiculous Liam Neeson action movies are almost a genre unto themselves these days, and “Non-Stop,” the actor’s latest collaboration with his “Unknown” director Jaume Collet-Serra, might be near the top of the B-movie heap. This comes with a pretty strong caveat that, like “Unknown,” there’s not much about “Non-Stop” that isn’t completely unbelievable and ridiculous. But stylish thrills are their own reward, and as the title implies, “Non-Stop” is quite the ride. Neeson stars as a washed-up air marshal struggling with the booze who boards a pretty standard trans-Atlantic flight. Some time into the flight, the marshal starts getting text message on his closed-server phone from an unknown messenger threatening to murder a person every 20 minutes on the flight until a large sum of money is deposited in an account of his choosing. Naturally, this plot is not what it seems, and as “Non-Stop” twists and turns, you start considering things you never might have before; for example, what is the best place to hide a corpse on a completely sold-old flight to Europe? “Non-Stop” wrings a lot of tension out of his enclosed location, and while it might spiral a bit out of control as it nears its end and more outside elements become involved in the story, it’s kind of a blast all around, with Neeson tinting his dependably commanding presence with a touch of welcome derangement. $29.98 DVD, $34.98 Blu-ray.

“DEVIL’S KNOT”

Director Atom Egoyan is responsible for one of the most moving and low-key dramas ever made about loss and grief among survivors, “The Sweet Hereafter.” You wouldn’t know it from looking at the garish misfire “Devil’s Knot” that the same director was responsible for that Oscar-nominated 1997 film, which is nearly as good as this one is bad. It’s charitable to call “Devil’s Knot,” at the very least, completely unnecessary. The film is a dramatic retelling of the trial of Jessie Misskelley Jr., Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols, better known as the West Memphis Three, accused and convicted of the murders of three young boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, despite a wild lack of actual evidence. You may already know plenty about the West Memphis Three and the miscarriage of justice that was their conviction from the three “Paradise Lost” documentaries and the recent documentary “West of Memphis.” You would think four feature films are adequate retellings; after all, there are three times as many Scottsboro Boys and only one documentary film about them. But now Egoyan has compiled a fine cast of actors to play a dumbed-down, cliché-ridden version of the story, with Reese Witherspoon as the grieving mother of one of the murdered children and Colin Firth as a private investigator increasingly certain of the accused teens’ innocence. They do not give good performances, as they have little of interest to do or say in this dull, drab docudrama that just can’t add anything of worth after the exhaustive treatment this has already received. $29.96 DVD, $34.97 Blu-ray.

“ALAN PARTRIDGE”

British comedian Steve Coogan has portrayed the clueless, awkward radio-DJ-turned-TV-host Alan Partridge in a couple British TV shows, but the character has never made it to the big screen until this new film. Clearly “Alan Partridge” and its title character are better-known in the U.K., but funny is funny, and the very funny Coogan brings his trademark cringeworthy humor the screen quite capably. I suspect those already acquainted with the Partridge character will get more out of this film, but if you’re like I was and you don’t know much about these shows at all, you’ll still get a good number of laughs out of this. When the film begins, Partridge is once again working as a small-town radio DJ at a station on the verge of being purchased by a media conglomerate. Desperate to save his own job, Partridge interrupts a management meeting to suggest a low-rated unpopular DJ (Colm Meaney) should be fired. He is, but no one at the station anticipates him returning with a shotgun and holding the employees hostage. This inadvertently puts Partridge in the middle of a tense situation and media firestorm, in which he acts as confidant to his friend-turned-criminal while also working as a negotiator for the police, and resulting, of course, in his ego swelling far too much to accomplish anything. Coogan is a fantastic comic actor clearly in his element here, wildly funny as the arrogant, unlucky character he has played for so long. $26.98 DVD, $29.98 Blu-ray.

“TIM’S VERMEER”

No matter how little you may know about any particular subject, there’s always a palpable fascination in watching dedicated people explore and innovate within their fields. “Tim’s Vermeer,” a new documentary directed by Teller and produced by and featuring his professional partner, Penn Jillete, is a fantastic example of just that. As a viewer coming into this documentary, it’s not terribly likely that all of us are intimately acquainted with the Dutch master painted Johannes Vermeer, beyond recognition of the name and perhaps his “Girl With a Pearl Earring.” But Tim Jenison turned his fondness for Vermeer’s work and his fascination with technique into a years-long attempt to prove his hypothesis about how Vermeer made his masterpieces. Vermeer has long been admired for his near-photographic depictions of shading and light and the immaculate detail presented in his scenes. Jenison, a Texas inventor who made a fortune tinkering and inventing, read the theory that Vermeer may have used a camera obscura — in other words, a projection through a lens of an image — to paint his works, and he set out to prove it was so. “Tim’s Vermeer” follows Jenison through his painstaking, sometimes quite comical attempts to prove his hypothesis by rebuilding a Vermeer scene, re-inventing the mechanism Vermeer might have used to capture his image and learning to oil paint so he can paint a version himself. It’s a fascinating and light-hearted examination of the boundaries between art and technology and the obsessive, triumphant spirit of the scientific mind. $40.99 DVD/Blu-ray combo.